Toronto Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas bolstered his lineup with five trades in February that shook up the team’s depth. But he is happy to continue on without adding another goaltender.
VANCOUVER — When Kyle Dubas acquired oft-injured goaltender Matt Murray from the Ottawa Senators in July, he did so knowing the risk involved. That's why the Toronto Maple Leafs' GM signed former Washington Capitals goaltender Ilya Samsonov to a one-year, $1.8 million contract as an insurance policy.
And it's a good thing that he did because there is no telling where the Maple Leafs would be had it not been for the Russian goaltender's solid performance amid a heavy workload.
"The things we were looking for from him would be how he would respond when things weren't going well and how he would recover when he got into bad stretches," Dubas said of Samsonov.
The Russian 22-8-2 this season with a respectable .915 save percentage. He did have a difficult stretch in mid-December before picking things up in 2023. On Jan. 17, Samsonov had to relieve Murray after the latter allowed four goals on eight shots against the Florida Panthers. Samsonov stepped in and helped guide the Leafs to a comeback victory later in the evening. Samsonov essentially took the reins of Toronto's starting goaltender position and Murray hadn't played since, as he recovered from a flared-up ankle injury sustained just 10 days later.
But now Murray is expected to finally return from his second injury stint of the season on Saturday against the Vancouver Canucks. And given Joseph Woll's recent play when filling in as a backup to Samsonov, Dubas assessed the market and assessed what he currently had and determined that it just wasn't worth it.
"I think the question is how confident are you that they can do it in the end and pull through," Dubas said. "Matt (Murray) has done it in the past (two-time Stanley Cup champion) and there weren’t really other guys available that have. And we believe in the potential of both Ilya and Joe."
Dubas had stated in two different media availabilities last month that he wasn't looking to add at the goaltending position, but he also said he wasn't targeting any of the big names just days before acquiring former Conn Smythe Trophy winner Ryan O'Reilly from the St. Louis Blues.
Instead, Dubas chose to put his focus on making his team tougher to play against, which as a by-product, makes it simpler on his goaltenders. He added forwards Ryan O'Reilly, Noel Acciari, Sam Lafferty and defensemen Jake McCabe, Erik Gustafsson and Luke Schenn. It came at the cost of high draft picks, some lower-end prospects, defenseman Rasmus Sandin and forward Pierre Engvall.
But there were clues that the new additions are making the desired impact.
The Maple Leafs are coming off a 2-1 victory against the Calgary Flames on Thursday. Toronto's third period saw the club lock things down defensively, not giving the opposition any clear looks at Toronto's net.
"It was probably one of the more complete periods that I saw a team play," Murray said of what he observed from the press box. "When they had the puck we gave them no time and space. Made good decisions. Blocked shots. They did all the little details right."
Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe agreed calling it Toronto's best period of the season.
For all of those reasons, Dubas kept things the way they were. Given what their salary cap situation was looking like, it was clear there was no appetite to eat into Murray's $4.875 million cap hit which will be back on the books when he is activated from the long-term injured reserve.
Per Puckpedia.com, the Leafs would have $928,000 cap space with 49 NHL contracts. That leaves an empty slot available for Maple Leafs' 2021 second-round draft pick Matthew Knies, who is eligible to sign with the club at a maximum cap hit of $925,000 when his season with the University of Minnesota comes to an end.
Given how perfectly the Leafs were set up going into deadline day, it would have taken something extraordinary for the Leafs to entertain any moves, goalie or otherwise.